


Private Displays of Affection

by doctorhelena



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Married Couple, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steggy Hearts or Butts Challenge 2020, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorhelena/pseuds/doctorhelena
Summary: “This is exactly why married agents aren’t supposed to work field missions together, Steve!”
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 32
Kudos: 210





	Private Displays of Affection

**Author's Note:**

> This is my (slightly late) contribution to the [2020 Steggy Hearts or Butts Challenge](https://steggyfanevents.tumblr.com/post/190373063806/februarys-not-far-away-and-you-know-what-that) on Tumblr.

_Washington DC, February 1950_

“Are they drunk enough to think they’re being subtle?” asked Robbins, watching the tipsy couple edge their way off the dance floor towards the hallway, the swaying blonde girl giggling at something her bearded companion was whispering into her ear, his hand very low on her back and wandering steadily downward.

Mike, the bartender, shrugged. “Honestly, I’m surprised they’re both still upright. Him especially - he keeps finishing off her drinks. Guy’s probably had enough to tranquilize an elephant.” 

Robbins sighed and followed after them, not surprised to find them kissing with eager abandon against the locked door to Mr. Beck’s office, the girl’s dress already pushed up nearly past the tops of her stockings. He was a little surprised, though, when she reached blindly back to twist the doorknob and the door swung open behind her. Before he had time to react, the two had already stumbled through into the office, the man reaching back to push the door firmly shut behind them. The lock clicked and a faint, muffled moan escaped from the other side.

Robbins blinked, and fought a brief, silent war with himself. It was fairly obvious what they were up to. And the people who attended Mr. Beck’s parties were usually not the sort of people who generally took well to being interrupted by a butler. But - the fact remained that these two, who were certainly not in the inner circle, were now alone, unsupervised, in Mr. Beck’s office. Had the door really been left unlocked? If it hadn’t - 

Well, he decided finally, it wasn’t like he couldn’t go check up on what they were up. Mr. Beck never left anything to chance. 

\-----

Having successfully infiltrated the office, Steve reached back to lock the door as Peggy pulled away with a tiny, reluctant moan. He grinned at her, then frowned suddenly, listening. Shit. “ROOM BUGGED,” he tapped in Morse code on the inside of her wrist, and she nodded as he silently pointed out the sources of the faint, nearly inaudible buzzing. Three bugs. Vincent Beck was paranoid, although, it had to be said, not entirely without cause.

“BUTLER,” Peggy tapped back, inclining her head towards the door. Steve nodded, watching as she expertly slid the tiny lockpick back into its place in her necklace, and then checked on the status of her wig. Steve wasn’t the only one still catching his breath after the display they’d just put on, but he guessed that with the bugs in the room and the butler still listening outside, maybe a little heavy breathing wasn’t such a bad thing.

Vincent Beck, whose office they’d just invaded, was a member of the Arena Club, a fraternity of rich and powerful men whose shadowy influence extended not only over the government but increasingly over the SSR as well. It had been one of the reasons Peggy, Phillips, and Howard had been quietly discussing the formation of a new, independent agency even before Steve’s unexpected return. Now, armed with the knowledge that Hydra wasn’t nearly as dead as they’d believed, they were being even more cautious.

Vincent Beck was, it had turned out, also Hydra. And somewhere, hopefully in his office, was a full membership list of the DC-area Hydra cell he commanded. The real trick, of course, was to find and photograph it without tipping anyone off to their investigation. The bugs in the office were an obstacle they hadn’t been anticipating, although Steve, having years of experience with the ubiquitous security footage of the 21st century, was kicking himself now for not having thought of it. At least practical video surveillance was still some years in the future.

Steve could see Peggy thinking hard as he listened for the butler’s retreating footsteps in the hallway. When he gave her the thumbs up, she nodded once and then shot him an odd, apologetic look. “BE LOUD,” she tapped on his wrist, angling her chin in the direction of one of the bugs, and then stretched up to kiss him, their lips coming apart with an audible pop. 

Steve stared at her, and she winked at him and squeezed his hand. “Damn it, Charlie, this is not a bedroom,” she said in a husky voice he’d only ever heard in particularly intimate moments, and certainly never with an American accent. He blinked.

She gestured at him a little impatiently as she slipped out of her shoes and moved silently towards the desk in her stocking feet. Oh. Right. He cleared his throat. “Well, we can - haven’t you ever wanted to do it on a desk?” he asked, and made a face at himself. Smooth, Rogers.

Peggy rolled her eyes at him, although not without affection, and let out a low, breathless laugh for the benefit of anyone listening. She crouched down beside the desk to peer underneath, then raised her head thoughtfully, eyeing the structure. “Yes, here on the desk,” she breathed, gesturing at the drawers. Steve nodded and joined her, leaning over to grab two of the drawer handles as Peggy took hold of the other two. She counted down silently from three and they both pulled at the same time. The desk rattled. 

Peggy gasped. “Oh! I - oh, Charlie!” She began to breathe in loud, ragged gasps as she efficiently searched through the drawers, and after a startled second Steve realized she was trying to hide the noise of rustling paper. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he joined in with the heavy breathing, feeling slightly ridiculous. 

She smiled at him as she lifted out a stack of papers from the lower left-hand drawer, setting them aside on the desk, and then made him jump by suddenly slapping the desk with a loud, impatient whimper and yanking out the bottom of the drawer itself, exposing a small, hidden compartment underneath. ‘Oh, stop teasing!” she moaned, as she leaned down to peer inside. “Just rip them off if you can’t - ”

Steve had a sudden urge to clear his throat. “I thought you liked it slow,” he said, a little hoarsely. Peggy, gave him a hard-to-read sideways glance and then carefully tugged a small stack of papers out of the compartment, timed to coincide with a particularly loud gasp. She scanned the topmost paper and shot him a triumphant grin, electricity arcing between them as it always had when she looked at him like that.

“Sounds like you liked that,” he managed, in a deep, gravelly voice that he should have had to work a hell of a lot harder to achieve.

Peggy reached up to her neckline to unpin the small camera-broach Howard had made her for the occasion. “I - yes,” she breathed in a slightly strangled voice, and when their eyes met her pupils were considerably darker than Steve had expected. Oh God. Suddenly it was far too easy to imagine he was actually on his knees in front of the desk, Peggy’s skirt hitched up, her head thrown back, her fingers tightening in his hair. “Yes, right there!” she breathed as she brought the broach to her left eye, checking the angle of the camera. “Oh, don’t you dare stop, I - oh, I - ” 

Steve swallowed at the series of noises she made to cover the sound of rustling as she carefully flipped through the stack of papers, snapping a picture of each one. They stared at each other for a long moment and then Peggy cleared her throat, her voice thick and hoarse. “Come up here. You deserve some kind of reward after _that_.”

Steve wondered if the whole thing would be any easier if Peggy wasn’t quite clearly having the same problem he was.

She looked away as she refastened the broach to her dress, and Steve silently thanked whatever deity might be listening for the button fly that meant he didn’t have to consider whether he should go so far as to actually unzip his pants for the benefit of any eavesdroppers. “You sure?” he asked, hoarsely.

“Yes. I need - I need you - inside me right now,” Peggy gasped, and Steve wasn’t entirely sure she was faking the ragged breathing anymore as she gathered the papers back into their bundle. As she fitted them back into the compartment, he realized he wasn’t contributing much to the operation, and tentatively groaned in the general direction of one of the bugs. Peggy shot him a quick smile, then slammed her hand suddenly on the desk again as she replaced the false bottom of the drawer. “Yes! - oh - oh, Charlie,” she moaned, returning the rest of the papers to the regular part of the drawer. She carefully examined the desk to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. “Oh God.” She took in a shuddering breath. 

Closing the drawers was going to make a noise. Steve considered the situation for a second, then began to rhythmically shake the desk while he and Peggy carefully eased the drawers back into place, a little at a time. Finished, they stared at each other, wide-eyed and breathless.

They were, Steve realized, in fairly serious trouble. If one of them didn't - 

In one swift step, Peggy was between Steve and the desk, already unbuttoning his pants as he boosted her up onto the desktop and leaned forward to kiss her fiercely. He tugged her skirt higher, somehow remembering to keep shaking the desk with his other arm, and she fumbled with their underwear, hooking a leg around his back to pull him closer. And then - oh God - her fingers were wrapped roughly around him, guiding him blindly into place, and she was biting his lip hard and arching her hips to meet him as he pushed inside her in one breathtaking thrust that nearly ended things for him right then and there. 

Peggy was very ready, and he could tell she was nearly as achingly close as he was, her breath coming in shuddering gasps even before he braced himself on the desk and began to move. Their hips took over the driving rhythm he’d established, and Steve slid his newly-free hand under Peggy’s dress to where they were joined, somehow managing to elbow a heavy stapler right off the desk in the process. Peggy gasped and knocked over an entire cup of pencils a moment later, and then slammed her hand heavily into the telephone, knocking the receiver off the hook. The desk was shaking in earnest now, and one of the drawers started to slide open. Steve somehow had the presence of mind to push it back with his knee, and then - oh God - Peggy was arching her back and falling apart around him with a ragged sob, and his own climax was crashing helplessly over him, leaving him collapsed half on top of her on the smooth desktop, completely unable to move.

They clung to each other, panting, for a long, wordless moment. Finally, Peggy reached out a limp hand to replace the telephone receiver, silencing the insistent dial tone. She pushed at Steve’s chest and he slipped out of her and then gently pulled her up with him until she was sitting on the edge of the desk. There was a long, slightly mortified silence. “Well,” Peggy said finally, in her American accent, glancing at the nearest bug and still not quite meeting his eye, “I guess we should pick up all these pencils and get back to the party, huh?”

******

They were staying the night at Howard's, his DC residence having become the de facto headquarters of their investigation into Hydra. For obvious reasons, none of them felt safe leaving anything on SSR or military property, Phillips had inquisitive young grandchildren who often had the run of his house, and Peggy and Steve’s tiny New York apartment had no storage space to speak of. Working out of one of Howard’s houses had also made it easier to unobtrusively recruit the help of the Jarvises, who’d been willingly pressed into service analyzing data. There were so few people they could trust right now.

But, as Peggy often complained, Howard was still so - Howard.

His role in tonight’s operation had been to keep Vincent Beck occupied while Peggy and Steve infiltrated the office. Having done so, he’d left the party shortly before they had, in the company of a giggling young woman in a green dress. Maybe, Steve thought hopefully, he wasn’t home yet.

As Jarvis opened the front door, though, Howard leaned backwards out of the sitting room, grinning at them. “Hey hey, welcome back, lovebirds! How was the party?”

“Where’s your new friend?” countered Peggy.

Howard looked puzzled. “Who? Oh, the girl I left with? Dropped her off at her aunt’s place on my way home.” Peggy raised both eyebrows, and he shrugged. “What? She’s probably Hydra. I do have _some_ standards you know, Peg.” He grinned. “But taking her home gave me an excuse to get out of there. God, Vincent Beck is boring as hell.” 

Peggy’s lips twitched. “That was uncharacteristically strategic of you, Howard. Perhaps you’ve learned something from your experience with Dottie Underwood after all.”

Howard made a face at her. “You two get anything good in the office?”

Steve could feel his ears reddening, but Howard, oddly, didn’t press the double entendre. “We did,” said Peggy. “I’ve photographed the membership list. Names, addresses, telephone numbers, and useful blackmail suggestions for everyone. Practical man, Mr. Beck.” She unclipped her broach and handed it to Jarvis. “There are at least 30 names here. It’s actually rather disheartening.”

Howard blew out a puff of air. “It’s not disheartening so much as infuriating as hell.” He shrugged. “But on the bright side, they still don’t seem to have the least suspicion we’re on to them.” He turned to Jarvis. “We’ll need to get those pictures developed pronto.”

Jarvis let out a tiny sigh and looked pointedly at the clock.

“Go to bed,” said Howard, waving him off. “Morning’s soon enough. I don’t need Ana ticked off at me again." He shook his head. 

“If you’re certain, sir,” said Jarvis politely, one foot already on the stairs. He turned to Peggy and Steve. “Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. It’s lovely, as always, to have you.”

Sudden amusement danced in Howard’s eyes as he watched Jarvis disappear up the stairs. “Speaking of going to bed, I hate to break it to you Rogers, but I don’t think that hot dame you snuck off with at the party was really a blonde. You, ah, find out if the carpet matched the drapes?”

Peggy sighed. “Don’t be a pig, Howard.”

Howard grinned. “It’s just that I heard a rumour about a couple matching your description having a pretty hot time on Beck’s desk.” His lips twitched. “What the hell were you two doing in there?”

“You know perfectly well what we were doing in there,” said Peggy, evenly. “We were searching the office for that list of names.” She cleared her throat, colour creeping into her cheeks. “Once we realized the room was bugged, we had to improvise a little.”

“So you did know it was bugged, then?” asked Howard, grinning again.

Peggy rolled her eyes. “Oh for God’s sake, Howard. How many tests did you run on Steve’s hearing at Camp Lehigh? Of course we knew it was bugged.” 

Howard was clearly enjoying himself immensely. “Well, from what I heard, you two were pretty damned convincing. Maybe your pal Angie isn’t the only one who belongs on Broadway.”

Peggy narrowed her eyes at him, and Steve hastily stepped between the two of them. “So Beck didn’t seem to suspect anything?” he asked Howard.

Howard still looked amused, but shook his head. “Nope. Just looked annoyed and gave his butler hell for not locking the door.” He sighed, serious again for a moment. “I still can’t believe we didn’t get rid of these bastards during the war. They’re worse than cockroaches. Maybe three heads really do grow back for every one you cut off.”

Peggy nodded. “Well,” she said, grimly, “We’ll make sure to cauterize them this time. We have the element of surprise on our side, and a secret weapon they couldn’t possibly have predicted.” She smiled at Steve. 

Howard nodded, stretched, and yawned. “Well, time to hit the hay, kids. We’ll take a look at those names in the morning.” The corner of his mouth twitched and he glanced at the two of them.

Steve took Peggy’s hand. “Goodnight, Howard,” he said firmly. “We’ll see you in the morning.” 

\-----

“I’m not entirely clear on whether Howard actually heard us, or just heard _about_ us,” Peggy said, pulling out the last of her hairpins and running her fingers through her hair until it hung down, loose and tousled, over her shoulders. “But either way, I - ”

Steve gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then dug a thumb into one of the knotted muscles in her neck. She let out a sigh, pressing into his hand like a cat. “You know he’s just teasing,” he said, beginning to work out the tension. “He doesn’t in a million years think we would actually - ”

“I know,” Peggy said, and turned to face him, colour high on her cheeks. “It’s just that - I can’t quite believe we actually did it either,” she said, all in a rush, looking down at her hands.

Steve cleared his throat, his own ears a little warm. “I - yeah.” They’d been studiously avoiding this conversation since they’d slipped out of Beck’s office to rejoin the party.

Peggy dropped her forehead heavily onto his chest, and he folded his arms around her. “I would ask what on earth we were thinking,” she said into his shirt, “but the problem is clearly that we weren’t. This is exactly why married agents aren’t supposed to work field missions together, Steve!”

“That is not the reason, and you know it,” said Steve, although he felt considerably less certain on this point than he wanted to admit. He cleared his throat. “And we - weren’t _not_ thinking. We did remember to maintain our cover the whole time.”

Peggy took in a long, shaky breath. “I can’t decide if that makes it better or worse,” she admitted, in a small voice. “I’ve never thought of myself as the sort of person who was interested in any sort of public display. And we obviously both remembered we had an audience.”

“Yeah,” said Steve, slowly. “But - I don’t think the audience actually had much to do with it. I just think we - we rationalized to ourselves that nobody could ever actually prove it happened. Once we realized we had plausible deniability, it didn’t matter if anyone was listening.” 

“Once we realized we had plausible _what?_ ” The ghost of a smile had made its way into Peggy’s voice. “Good God, is that really the sort of thing they say in the future?”

Steve huffed a laugh into her hair. “Sometimes. Sorry.” They’d both grown used to him occasionally breaking out an incomprehensible-to-Peggy reference or strange turn of phrase, although the longer he’d been back, the less often it happened.

“I do see what you mean,” she said, sounding much less unnerved. “But still, there was no excuse for losing control of ourselves like that. My darling, we simply can’t be rolling around on desks together every time we feel the urge. We’d never get anything done.” He could hear the full smile in her voice now.

“I know,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “But - honestly, the whole thing didn’t really go all that badly, if you think about it. Nobody but us knows what really happened. Howard really does think it was all fake, and well, we sure as hell sold our cover to whoever was listening. And we got the intel, without tipping off Hydra.” He pulled back so he could look at her. “We’ve both had missions go a hell of a lot further south than that.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, slowly. The corners of her lips turned upward. “Although on the other hand, one might argue you’ve never gone quite so far south on a mission before, Captain Rogers.”

Steve nodded solemnly, although his own lips were twitching. “I guess you could say it was a real cock-up?”

“Crikey O’Reilly, Rogers!” He could tell she was trying not to laugh. They grinned at each other, and he could tell that they were both feeling a lot better about the whole thing. “Well,” she said, “I suppose we have to take our victories where we can. I certainly hope Vincent Beck likes his pencils to be kept in a very particular order.”

Steve kissed her on the forehead. “Pretty sure we dented his stapler too.”

\----- 

I think,” Peggy said slowly, as she climbed into Howard’s enormous guest bed next to Steve, “that tonight, I just really need to know that we actually do still possess a modicum of self control. For my own peace of mind.”

“Sure,” said Steve, turning out his bedside light and settling into his pillow, smiling at her. He didn’t think he’d ever get over his quiet joy at being able to just turn his head and see her lying next to him, every night. Of all the things he loved about being married to Peggy Carter, the simple miracle of just existing with her in the intimacy of a dark bedroom was unexpectedly high on the list. 

She shifted restlessly and rolled over to face him. “Do you realize that denting Beck’s stapler might actually have been the biggest blow we’ve dealt Hydra since the war, thus far?”

“Well,” said Steve, “that and Bucky.”

“True,” she conceded. Armed with intel from 2023, the Howling Commandos had managed to turn a Leviathan reconnaissance mission into a seemingly accidental discovery of the facility where Bucky was being held. His rescue, while annoying to Hydra, hadn’t seemed to set off any alarm bells - at this point, Hydra’s presence within Leviathan was just as deeply hidden as it was in the SSR.

“I just - ” she sighed. “I sometimes worry that we’ll never gather enough information to move forward without bringing Hydra along with us.” 

Steve reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “We’re making a dent. And we don’t have to know everything before we move forward. We just need enough to put together an agency full of people we know we can trust. We’re getting there.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just that sometimes I get the urge to go in with guns blazing.”

He nodded. “I know. Me too.” He traced a finger along her cheek. “I wish you could have come along when we picked up Bucky. That was a good fight.” He grinned at her. “Although, maybe we would have got distracted by the nearest flat surface and missed the whole thing.”

Peggy made a face. “We would not have.”

“No, we wouldn’t have,” agreed Steve. He’d been thinking it through while she was in the bathroom. “And Peg, I don’t think we would have tonight, either, if we were just searching the office the regular way.” 

She looked thoughtful. “I suppose you’re right,” she said, slowly. “I was certainly tempted to keep kissing you once we were through the door, but I didn’t seriously consider it.”

Steve nodded. “No, we started out fine. But then - I guess it was a bit like asking a starving person to pretend to eat a sandwich. The longer they have to do it, the harder it’s going to be not to take a real bite.”

Peggy’s lips curved upward. “I hardly think you’ve been starving, Rogers.”

He grinned. “Maybe not. But who bit who?” 

“Fair enough.” She looked a little smug.

“The point is,” he said, “we only got into trouble because we were trying to be convincing, and then the whole thing got away from us. It felt too real.” The corner of his mouth turned upwards. “You know, you and I do kind of have a thing for each other.” 

Peggy nodded, her hair rustling quietly against the pillow. “You mean, we were so convincing that we managed to convince ourselves.”

“Yeah,” said Steve, and they both lay silently with their thoughts for a few moments. He cleared his throat. “So, I think - if it seems like we might have to do something like it again, maybe we should practice ahead of time.”

Peggy blinked. “You want to - ”

He nodded. “I think if we just get used to it, we’ll be able to do it without the - the grand finale.”

She looked amused for a moment, then thoughtful. “It’s not a bad idea,” she said, finally. “I hope we won’t have to do it again, but I’m afraid this probably wasn’t the last party we’ll have to attend, and I don’t expect the sort of surveillance we encountered this evening is terribly uncommon in Hydra circles.” She cleared her throat. “But, not tonight.”

Steve grinned. “Yeah, I didn’t mean right now. We should probably wait ‘til we’re not at Howard’s.”

Peggy smiled suddenly. “Yes, Howard himself aside, I expect poor Mr. Jarvis wouldn’t be able to look me in the eye for days.”

“On the other hand, Mrs. Jarvis would probably give me a big thumbs up and extra eggs at breakfast,” said Steve, thoughtfully, and Peggy laughed out loud.

“She would, wouldn’t she?”

They grinned at each other for a long, comfortable moment, and then Steve yawned and stretched again. Peggy yawned too, shuffled closer, and snuggled into his chest. “So,” she asked, a little drowsily, in her perfect American drawl, “was it the blonde hair or the American accent that did it?” She poked him in the chest.

“Actually, I think it was the way you kept calling me Charlie,” he said, thoughtfully. She raised her head to look at him.

“Really?”

He grinned. “No.” She made a face and settled back down onto his chest. “Honestly,” he said into her hair, “it was when you slammed your fist down on the desk and asked me to rip off your underwear. And all I could picture was you, the real you, sitting there with your skirt pushed up around your waist, and me kneeling - ”

He heard her swallow. “Yeah.”

His voice dropped deeper. “It reminded me of the way you used to look at me in the map room in London during the war. I always wanted to sweep away all those little flags and - ”

Her hand was still on his chest, but she wasn’t exactly poking him anymore. “So did I,” she admitted, and leaned up to kiss him. She cleared her throat. “Maybe the desk was the real problem.”

He smiled slowly against her lips. “I’m not sure how Thompson would feel about us practicing our act in the SSR bullpen. Could be a bit risky too, someone might recognize - ”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, but she was grinning too. She shifted against him, sliding one leg between his.

“Peggy…” he said, carefully.

Her hands were tracing the muscles on his chest. “You were right, you know,” she said. “It’s not that we don’t have self control. We were simply taken unprepared by a very specific circumstance that we’ve now made a plan to rectify.”

“Mmmm,” he said.

“So I suppose we don’t actually need to practice resisting each other while we’re alone together in bed in the middle of the night.”

“Probably not,” he agreed.

“Well then,” she said, gravel in her voice, “I believe I’m owed a pair of knickers.”

He kissed her ear, and she smiled and arched against him with a languid sigh. “I didn’t really rip them off, you know,” he reminded her, his fingers skimming the soft skin just under the hem of her pajama top.

One of her hands trailed lazily down his chest, her fingers briefly tangling with his before continuing on, slowly but inexorably toward the waistband of his shorts.

“Not yet,” she said, serenely, her voice rich with promise.


End file.
